"Hitler and his party were pretty anti-establishment, so I don't find it hard to believe that the aristocracy of Germany, whom Hitler bitterly hated, would hate him back."

Right on. There's a reason Hitler didn't restore the Kaiser. Nazis hated the reactionaries as much as the communists.

If they liked each other or not is irrelevant.

The key point here is, there was no serious resistance from the Army until 1943. The German military was more than willing to follow Hitler and participate in his crimes until they started losing.

Even if Rommel had no direct role in war crimes (which, by the way, is debatable), he still served a regime that imprisoned its enemies without trial, murdered people in the streets, and was engaged in genocide. A lot of people who study WW2 military history try to put a big dividing line between the Army and the SS... when the Army was not just aware, but participated in many atrocities. The Nazi government was obscene, and those that served it could not escape their part in that obscenity by claiming they were just doing their jobs.

Brilliant though Rommel may have been, he, in the balance, is found wanting.

Operation Blue Peacock has to be among the most fun in a sick and twisted kind of way. Must... keep... chickens... alive!

@ diplomat61 --

Possibly. Still not a good plan to send paratroopers (the lightest infantry of the time) against heavy armour. Even if Allied armour had reached the parachute divisions on time, they still would have lost, due to the superior performance of the German armour. (Cromwells and Shermans against Tigers and Panthers?)

Friendly Sword,

I hope you were not including me as one of those "afflicted with mental development issues" as you say. If what I said egged you to post that then I apologize as I forgot to exclude TMW as a troll this time. This thread I believe is geniune if you didn't think I did beforehand. Some others here though chose to write up 3 pages of shit-flinging. That I found funny.

But I digress.

In my own personal opinion I believe my favorite military operation was Desert Storm. It was one of the fastest and cleanest wars that the US could have fought. Not only that, but the UN for once decided to take an agressive approach in bringing member states into line instead of taking ineffective approaches like imposing minor sanctions.

@TMW
The paras were not expected to encounter tanks as Arnhem was far from the then front line. However, they were unlucky enough to find two panzer divisions that were being rested after the Normandy campaign. Shortly before the operation commenced reports of heavy armour in the area reached the Allies but were dismissed by Montgomery, which was poor judgement.

As it was, 2 Para captured and held the bridge for several days whilst the 82nd & 101st captured 4 of the 5 bridges that XXX Corps had to cross to reach Arnhem. If the strong German units had not been present then I think it is reasonable to suppose that they would have been successful.

Desert Storm: a well-trained, army with high morale large amounts of air support and the best (debatable) weapons in the world
VS.
a slightly experienced army with little training, previous generation Soviet arms, with very little air support and extremely low morale, caught out in the open. It was no contest. The Iraqis used Russian T-72s (previous generation tank) but with Iraqi made shells. A M1A1 Abram could take that hit without a scratch. I think the only tank casualty came from friendly fire.

"If at first you don't succeed, call in an airstrike."

Tactical air support usually means the difference of a campaign lasting a week or lasting a month.

The US Military could defeat, or severely cripple, almost any other fighting force on the planet, without high losses.

I, personally, would like to see the US government retain that capability. Call me an alarmist, but China is growing fast, both economically and militarily. They're in the process of attacking us economically. (they own half of America, thanks to government spending) It's only a matter of time before the left cuts the defense budget and gets rid of ICBMs, and the military will start buying Chinese-made weapons. That's when they'll hit us militarily. Pretty tough to fight a war when your war machine is already in the enemy's hands.

You guys will laugh and call me crazy, but it's happening. They're in the process of perfecting a carrier-killing missile (Yahoo! News).

Like I said, you guys won't be laughing when there's a T-90 in your driveway and MiG-25s above your house, and you just got a draft card. That's when you'll wish you hadn't voted Democrat.

You're crazy.

It's a terrible idea to buy Chinese weapons systems. So terrible that it will never happen. Even if it were a good idea, the defense contractors in America will never let it happen.

Cutting the defense budget to better meet America's actual needs is not the end of the world. ICBMs are never going away, unless they're used.

China doesn't want to be the sort of world leader that America is. It wants political stability, economic stability, and Taiwan back. You're ridiculous if you think that military conflict with China over anything besides Taiwan declaring independence (extremely unlikely) or a really disastrous collapse of North Korea (too likely for comfort, but still not inevitable).

If there's one thing Diplomacy should teach you it's that states act in their own self-interest. Would China really be better off in a war with the US when they can just command huge influence through advancing Chinese interests through a prostrate, debtor America? Surely co opting and slightly modifying the current world order is a much easier thing to do than fashion one in a global war which would literally negate the world economy?

Invictus +1

Welcome back, dude! And great post, BTW.

If the government can keep the population in the countryside happy, which will be tough, China will be the most powerful country on earth by the end of this century. They have a quarter of the world's population, hungry to improve their living standards, huge inflow of money due to their low-cost exports, and are busy securing resource deals in Africa that will also bring them political influence.

That is the kind of power that America used to have.

I think our village idiot has been watching too much Red Dawn recently.

There is one reason the Chinese will never reach US shores: The United States Navy. In particular, the United States Navy Submarine Service.

We could cut back military spending quite a bit. Keep the Navy and the Air Force in a relatively high state, and we're set. I mean, can you imagine how many troops it would take to occupy Los Angeles?

To quote Chris Rock "If Iraq is the most dangerous country on Earth, why did it take two weeks to take over the whole fucking country? You couldn't take over Baltimore in two weeks!"

As Invictus pointed out, China doesn't give a rat's ass about military conquest. The onlyreason we'd ever go toe to toe is if we decided to interfere in their part of the world and took the fight to them. That said, the Submarine Service would really only come into play if we decided to go nuclear. China is more interested in air superiority and could, if they wanted, reach us on an Island hopping campaign with that airforce, much we like did with Japan in WWII, except they have better planes with longer ranges now than we had almost 70 years ago.

But again, they don't care and that airforce is intended to protect them from foreign invaders.

You'll need ships to carry equipment to any place. Airlifting fuel and munitions is about as effective as airlifting cement to build a four lane highway.

And those ships.... well... my boat (USS Connecticut) was designed to take on a Soviet battlegroup solo. I think we could handle wrecking a supply convoy and its escorts. :)

Boomers are for the end of the world. Only a madman (or a religious nut, if they aren't the same thing) would wish for a boomer to perform its mission.

We airlift fuel all the time (in flight refueling?) and construction materials, well they don't exactly drive them in to the middle of the jungle when a heavy lifter Chinook will do the trick nicely.

The Chinese military ATM is no where as powerful as America. They are modernizing but Its really not a top priority for them

1. Carriers have been thoroughly obsolete floating coffins against any state with the ability to project force for about 40 years now. Everyone with the ability to project force has guided missiles with several hundred mile ranges, and carriers emit an awfully big radio signature. Any state in the world with a military that could contemplate operating beyond their borders has enough of them that they could easily fire off a volley of 50, watch four of them get through any defensive envelop a carrier group has, and goodbye, JFK or Reagan, or whatever carrier they're targeting.

2. China has weathered the bulk of their demographic weirdness (a 1.3 to 1 ratio of men to women aged 15-35) from the strictly-enforced one child policy days already. If anything, as China's population ages, it's going to become more interested in global stability, especially if they think they're doing fairly well out of the geopolitical realities of the day.

3. That said, I don't think China's even going to be the preeminent power of Asia in 50 years; India's going to drink their milkshake.

Draugnar, yes, we can refuel in flight. But constructing (or rebuilding) a forward air base is going to take a lot more than a couple KC-135 flights and some Chinooks. Also, bombs are heavy. So are missiles. Spare parts, foodstuffs, etc.

Some hard facts: A KC-135 can carry 200,000 pounds of fuel.
A F-22 takes 26,000 pounds of fuel at full load. You'd need a lot of flights of tankers to keep a squadron able to fly a couple sorties a day (not to mention fuel for the tanker, spare parts, etc)
Its a non-trivial exercise to imagine supplying every strategic island in the Pacific enough to have the ability to attack the West Coast with sustained airpower.

Dragunar. Your wrong the carrier is still the most important and powerful weapon in the us military

I'm not saying it's going to happen tomorrow. They're gonna wait until they have all of our money and Taiwan. It could be 10 year. It's probably going to be 100 years. But it will happen. Don't think for a second that they don't want more land. It's science. They can't provide for their rapidly-growing population of 1.3 billion with their current land area. Like I said, they're going to wait and slowly build up until they have our money and our technology.

*years*

I don't think so, Bob Gengiskhan.

1. I admit not knowing enough about military technology to fault you there, but I can only assume the Navy would keep carriers out of range of those missiles. Surely a jet can go farther, or one of those invisible bombers could take out the missiles before the carriers get close. Not that this means much, since war is in neither state's interest and could only plausibly happen in an attack on Taiwan or a sloppy disintegration of North Korea.

2. Even if you're right about weathering the bulk of demographic troubles (and I really think you're wrong), there's still a generation or more of Chinese men who mathematically will never be married or find any sort of meaningful romantic relationship. What will those lonely, frustrated, pathetic single men do? Many will do bad things, like be serial killers or get politically active against the communist government. Add to that the "little emperors" phenomenon and the near impossibility of keeping a society with internet access effectively suppressed and you've got some severe demographic problems that will only get worse. It would seem to me that with ticking time bombs at home which could very well lead to open rebellion in the event of a serious defeat abroad the Chinese Communist party will not take much of on an interst abroad beyond makign sure the money keeps on rolling in.

3. While war between the US and China is unlikely, war between India and China is pretty likely. Great powers tend not to border one another. Also remember India has an incredibly serious Maoist insurgency going on which china could make much worse if it wanted to. The next war between Pakistan and India will involve China on Pakistan's side in some capacity. It's gonna suck. For all the talk of cooperation, the very best I think is ulitmately possible is an Asian Cold War.

Nice Anchor Man reference, Professor.

Even assuming they do want more land (doubtful), where would it come from? Vietnam? Japan? Russia? Two places it would be next to impossible to pacify and another that while they could walk right in they'd lose all their cities. Use your head.

@cent - I wasn't the one who said that. Please address your statement to Bob GenghisKhan.

@ mapleleaf --

If our countries went to war right now, who would win?

Keep in mind that we have 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 500 warheads mounted on said missiles (MIRVs). We have 77 B-52 strategic bombers, and 20 B-2 stealth nuclear bombers. And, nearly countless tactical aircraft that can be fitted with B61 or B83 variable-yield strategic or tactical bombs. Plus, 5,970 M1 Abrams main battle tanks.

Hint: We win.

At bobgenghiskhan for prior remark

Rather than land China's issue will be resources to fuel continued economic growth in order to keep the masses happy. As they tend to take a long view they are already working on the problem. Have a read of this:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csl.army.mil%2Fusacsl%2Fpublications%2FCCS1_09_ChinasPursuitofAfricasNaturalResources.pdf&ei=7jxcTLeVPJWJONTnsZgP&usg=AFQjCNFZPcMwtMlxr37aM4vNlFmynSoeBg

@BobG why do you think India will do better than China?